He did not know how long it had been since Ella had left him in this desolate space, only that the wind had become more visceral and the heat even more desperate. If not for the tubs of ice cold water he managed to conjure up, then he would have been bone dry before long.
His tears had long dried up, so did the sweat on his skin. He tried to supplement it by drinking the water, but no matter how much and how cold it was, the liquid disappeared the moment it touched any part of his mouth.
In fact, any food and beverage disappeared every time it touched his mouth, as if mocking him for even trying to satiate himself.
"Maybe this is how I die."
"I suppose so."
The light yet kind voice startled him, his body moving on its own as he rolled forward and faced the second figure reconstructed by his mental realm.
"D-doctor Giselle?"
His mouth was left agape by the short blonde hair, gentle smile, and thick-framed ruby glasses that gleamed a piercing look. She was in the same clothes she wore that day in prison, even had the same wet spot where the blood from her neck had splattered unto.
"You've made quite a mess, huh?"
Irwin didn't answer. No, it was quite fair to say that he couldn't answer. Instead, the guilt radiating from her body was so intense that he roared in fear and ran away.
Running as far as his legs could take him. He stumbled, fumbled, and scraped every part of his limbs, but, still, he ran as far as he could.
But as soon as he looked back, her visage was no more than a few dozen feet away. A ghost clinging to his form with an invisible chain.
Unfortunately for him, his starving stomach and parched throat had inhibited his stamina. His legs finally stumbled from the last time and began rolling down the cracked soil, breaking multiple fingers and bruising his whole body.
"Come now, Irwin." Her voice, not unlike her form, was not too far away, always whispering into his ears. "I just want to talk."
"I-I'm so s-sorry!" He crumpled onto the ground and forced himself to be smaller like an infant, raising his fist as if to defend himself from her actions.
She hummed like she always did when gloating over him. Jokingly, of course.
"Here we go again with infantilizing yourself. I'm not gonna be your surrogate mother, you know? Nor will I fix you because you, my friend, can't afford me!"
Irwin held on, concentrating on his mind to remove Doctor Giselle out of the realm.
"C'mon, really? You can't remove me. If you don't know what I am by now, then, frankly, you really should kill yourself?"
The memories of his last day on Earth resurfaced repeatedly whenever her words whispered in his ears, resurfacing like an unrelenting tide of guilt and humiliation.
Her kind words that day made an emotion, long discarded for fear of his life, well up once more. Everyone believed that he had killed seven-year-old kids, and convicts in general population may be scumbags, but they don't hang around with 'kiddie-killers'.
Not a day had gone by without a prisoner's fist ramming against his chest, or spit be spewed on his food. Even the local white supremacists ridiculed him, gloating over his bruises.
Do you know how lowly and scum you would have to be for neo-nazis to ridicule another white guy? Doctor Giselle knew and damn if she didn't do everything in her power to save him from his eventual fate.
"Please… I-I just. I'm sorry!" He yelled his apology, not daring to look her in the eye. "I didn't mean to do it. They were threatening me… I-"
"You wanted to save yourself," He could see the snark even from afar, one borne out of her frustration. "You're weak. A coward, a selfish man whose recklessness has destroyed yet another life! A life that had been entrusted to you, a life that you took because, yet again, you were a selfish bitch!"
Her words broke through his flimsy defense, forcing him to look at her with reddened eyes. Harsh it may be, her words struck true for the moment he entered upon this world, the moment he assumed the life and status of Richard Greythorne. He was nothing but selfish.
Even the kindest thing he had ever done was born not out of altruism or granted without expecting that the kindness be requited, but was, instead, had all been done with an objective in mind.
"W-what do I do? What can I do?" He asked, desperation leaking from his voice.
Doctor Giselle smiled, kneeling down to his level before patting his head.
"Why don't you kill yourself?"
●●16 Hours After The Banishment●●●
Hephaestus burped gleefully, smashing his wooden jug atop the oaked table. The force of which caused the surface to tremble with its contents shaking along, an act that earned a frustrated harrumph from his friend.
"How dare you do that? I just had to waste a potion for that critter!" He scoffed at Thrudgelmir, opting to refill his mead to the brim.
"Not my fault you have a bleeeeeee~ding heart!" Thrudgelmir waved around his own jug, singing his words as if in an opera. "That's why you're still here and not in the New World, you old fart!"
Hephaestus grumbled under his breath, knowing full well how right his titanic friend was. But before he could give a snarky reply, the thatched door emitted a lustrous bang, and did so two more times.
The god of fire's rosy cheeks and rancid breath rapidly removed itself from his body, alongside his alcohol intake as he let out a finely thin mis of white energy. A parlor trick taught by Dionysus after the incident with Paris and the golden apple, one that saved the god from the wrath of Hera many times.
"Come in." He said, wiping away the wet spots in the table before nudging the giant out of his stupor.
So entered the visitor, a tall woman with a wild mane of red hair and muscles bulging underneath her soot-stained tunic and lion-buckled leather belt. Her rotting bronze axe was placed precariously on her hips, nearly grinding at her bare thighs.
But the two were more taken aback by the large stag atop her broad shoulders, neck cut wide open and bleeding on Hephaestus' floor.
"Argh!" He screamed, startling the woman. "At least bleed the deer on the river. The hut's gonna stink for a month, no thanks to you."
"Just in time, Hilde!" Thrudgelmir tapped the stool beside him, his large frame made quite a contrast to the medium-sized chair and table set. "What's the name of the buck that you killed there?"
Hilde grinned, proudly patting the severed head of the deer that was attached to her belt. "This here's Ronatowa. Guardian of some fucking Woodlands, not anymore though."
Hephaestus gave a deep sigh, shaking his head as he took the deer from Hilde and began preparing the meat, which will be feasted upon by night.
"It's been a long time since we had a guardian at my table. Nowadays, all of them want to go to the New World. Damn shame." He grunted, savagely tearing off the skin of the large deer without so much as single damage on its meat and hide.
"What can you do, Grumpy? This continent's got too many hands, too many people, too much competition." Hilde remarked, sitting next to a joyful and quite clearly, extremely drunk Thrudgelmir. "By the way, what in the nine realms is that guy doing in your bed?"
She pointed to the burnt body laid neatly upon Hephaestus' bed, bits of its reddish-brown burnt skin sticking to the hay-like bed sheet. If it was not for the faint magical energy coursing through his skin and bones, the three friends would have thought him to be dead, a corpse for disposal.
"He's a mortal to boot!"
Hephaestus chuckled as he flayed thin, but long portions of venison before piercing them together with a long metal stick. "I know you aren't one of us, but at least feel him out a bit."
Hilde crossed her arms, furrowing her eyebrows as she gazed at the burned man. Her eyes briefly closed before opening up and revealing that a six-pointed crimson star had replaced her pupils.
"What's the big d-fuck! How's he regenerating that fast?"
She quickly replaced her eyes with her normal one, sweat tracing her temples.
"What? It's the effect of thy potion!" Thrudgelmir suddenly regained his sobriety, eyes as clear as a frozen pond in the middle of winter. He tapped his chin, rifling through his memories. "Although it's a bit strong for something made by the Faust Consortium."
"I told you. Look closer." Hephaestus clearly enjoyed his knowledge, as a smug expression was on his face. Turning the heat of the central forge from bright-red to white-hot and placing the skewer inside as only the brightest of fire can cook the flesh and blood of mother nature.
Thrudgelmir stood from his seat, walking a step closer to the man he took in. His face turned grimmer by the second.
"It can't be." He remarked, disbelief in his voice.
Hilde's face, however, flashed with anger, one hotter than the forge itself.
"He's a mortal. Not an object nor an angel."
Hephaestus smirked, curiosity and dread welling up in his body. For as long as he can remember, not even the mightiest of his brothers had not met the Almighty, yet, here he was deep in the foot of a mountain range, on the cusp of divinity.
"I don't know what to tell you, but that boy… is a Hand of God."